Posts Tagged ‘stores’

Gardening can be an extremely rewarding hobby. Sure, it can yield tasty vegetables, but you also get the satisfaction of growing those vegetables yourself. While it can be very rewarding, gardening can also be very challenging. Each plant has its own set of needs, and in order to grow any given plant you’ll need to know how much water, how much fertilizer, and how much space it needs to grow properly. If you’d like to start a garden but you lack the knowledge to get started correctly, Seedly can help. They don’t just sell seeds, they give you all of the supplies and information you need to go from planting the seeds all the way to harvesting your vegetables.

You start by picking a kit which comes with several types of seeds, fertilizer, and several other supplies you’ll need to get the seeds planted and ready to grow. The seeds come on seed strips which keep them properly spaced out – all you have to do is plant the seed strip. To make sure you plant your seeds at the right time, they’ll send your kit when your growing one is ready for planting.

As the growing season goes on Seedly will send you personalized information about how to keep your plants healthy. You’ll get advice related specifically to your plants and your growing zone. That way you’ll have all the information you need to keep your plants healthy.

Seedly even monitors the growing conditions in y our area and gives you advice that’s directly related to what’s happening in your area. For example, if you haven’t had any rain in a while, Seedly will remind you to water your plants.

Seedly walks you through the process of gardening from start to finish, making it easy to grow your own garden. If you’ve never had a green thumb, but you’ve always been interested in gardening, you can’t go wrong with Seedly.

Vicki of No2Alike Jewelery asks: “Hi, I am being asked to partner with someone, exactly how does this work? Will they get any of my profits from my website and how will this benefit me and my business? Is this a good idea? I don’t know anything about this. Thank-you, Vicki”

Thanks for the great question Vicki.

What is it?

A partnership allows you to display a link to your store on their store and vice versa. Checkout Shop JunCk’s partnerships:

How does it work?

If you accept a partnership request your stores will be automatically linked on your store homepage. If you want to seek out partners you can easily do that in the Network -> Find Partners section.

Should you do it?

If you like your partners store and what they are doing then YES you should do it. It will help you get more traffic to your store.

Everyone wants to know how to make more sales. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of most successful stores and figure out what they have in common. All of these stores are doing very well.

Browse through these sites. What lessons can be learned? Here are my thoughts.

Lesson 1: Pick a very specific field and be the BEST in the world at it.

The first thing I notice about all these stores is that they sell products with very specific audiences. They each sell in their own niche market and can therefore focus on being the best in their area. Many of these stores have a link to their own website with more information, or they have a blog. Customers know that they have come to a store where the owner has expertise and that creates a sense of trust. I think this the most important lesson to learn here.

Lesson 2: It takes time and patience. If you are ready to give up, give it more time.

The majority of these stores have been around for over a year. While a few of them brought existing customers when they started and were able to average $3000-$5000 in sales for their first six months in business, several in this list did not bring in any sales at all until they had been around for at least three months. One of these store owners got so frustrated by lack of sales that she was ready to close down, but then all of a sudden, sales started trickling in and she decided to give it more time. Good thing she did.

Lesson 3: A simple store design does the trick

Each of these stores has made simple but effective design customizations. They all use their own logo, and they have all modified their color scheme to match their products and the theme of the store. None of them have spent a big budget to hire a professional designer. If you think you need to spend a lot of time and money on your design, use that time to focus on lesson 1 instead.

The Turtleman catches snapping turtles with his bare hands. He wades into murky swamp waters where turtles are likely to be, looks for their air bubbles, and then reaches down to pull them out by the tail. The largest one he has ever caught was 55 pounds!

Ernie Brown Jr. aka. “Turtleman” is from Kentucky and has become an international phenomenon in part because of his popular YouTube video that has gotten almost 1 million views. He has his own website, and recently launched his own Flying Cart store where he sells official Turtleman merchandise (turtlemania.flyingcart.com).

Our featured store this month is The Good Envelope Party, a collective that makes stationary out of recycled materials. I interviewed founder Jenny Rask.

Margo: How did your group get started and how did you come up with the idea of using recycled materials to make stationary?

Jenny: We got started meeting as a group last spring. It started out as some of my neighborhood friends hanging out together socializing. Some of us have children so I felt like I wanted to create a reason to meet and socialize more often. I had been making my own envelopes for a while and it dawned on me that my friends might like learning to do it as well. We are definitely all multi-taskers. We can fold, drink and chat. We started making them for our local schools to sell at fundraisers to raise money for them. When more people joined the group we realized how many we could make in an evening and realized that as a monthly collective we could produce even more and use the money towards helping people in need. So a great equation of Fun + Folding = Helping Others.

The reason we use recycled materials is to give old books and magazines another life and to to reduce waste while demonstrating how easy it is to be creative with materials we all may already have in your home. Anyone can fold an envelope or make their own gift wrap out of almost anything. We aren’t reinventing the wheel here. We are hopefully demonstrating to the consumer that we don’t have to buy “new” from new resources, that beautiful products can come from being resourceful with everyday things around us.

Margo: Can you explain a little about how a collective works?

Jenny: Well we all are very motivated in helping others who are in need. So that is really our common goal when we come together for this party. We really felt that if we could help one person or one family locally and directly that it would be incredible! So during our party we vote on short term goals who we would like to help the most immediately and then vote on long term ideas, who we would like to see receive our money in the future. The more stationery we sell obviously the better for whoever is the recipient of the money. We also vote on how much money we will donate for each cause.

So there is a lot of voting and then I help manage and guide the group a lot about where our stuff will be sold in shops, manage the online store and work with the daily orders. I source the materials we use too. We love donations of salvaged books and magazines with great full page photos or illustrations in them as well : ) 12 inches at least in height please!!!

Our meetings are really a fun party. It really is about having a laugh, hanging out together, helping others and building community. We welcome newcomers in our area. The stationery is our way of giving back to our community through maybe a little bit different approach.

Margo: Your site says that you donate all your profits to charitable organizations. How do you choose where to donate?

Jenny: We cover our costs first with the money which are fairly minimal and then the rest of the profit is saved until we have a recipient we agree on and have the sum of money saved in our account that we agree on. We vote on the recipient at our party. We have not yet donated as our store is new and profits are just finally coming in. We have voted on who will receive the first money though and it is someone local.

Margo: How did you sell your stationary before you started your online store with Flying Cart?

Jenny: We used to donate it to school fundraisers and had our stationery in a local store in L.A. called O.K. on 3rd Street.

Margo: In a very short time, you are having amazing success with sales and have a nice fan following. What have you done to get the word out about your store?

Jenny: We are so lucky! Being published in Daily Candy has been a huge help : )

Margo: Tell me a little about your blog and about some of the other projects you are working on.

Jenny: Well, let’s see. Ask WoollyM. (www.askwoollym.typepad.com) is an eco-friendly help site that I started last year. I am a mom of two kids and had been researching living more sustainably and toxin free since they were babies. It really inspired me to help others because there is so much information out there and I wanted to take a guilt-free user-friendly approach to it.

My friends kept asking me about their toxin concerns in their daily lives so it seemed kind of like a fun idea to help them by creating this and maybe help anyone else who might need a head start on their green path. I started this site to test the waters a bit and see how I might be able to contribute in this way. It is a question and answer site. So anyone can ask a question and I will research the question and post the a personal solution with my research. It is an amazing way to learn about other’s needs in this area or what their concerns are. Kind of like going to school again, but on my terms.

I am working on a few other eco-education projects that will hopefully be accessible online soon. They are coming from a different angle than other “How to live green” approaches. Hopefully the projects will be entertaining and educational. Check out www.theguidegirls.com in a couple weeks.

Stephen Clay is the builder and entrepreneur bringing back a very old hobby of Table Top War gaming. “The PC and gaming consoles damaged the hobby terribly but as time has passed younger PC game players are discovering Tabletop war gaming and the hobby is beginning to return to where it began (and belongs in my opinion) – the tabletop”, Clay says.

Stephen: The idea for each item come from several sources really, historical information, ideas from customers and everyday sights (I have a terrible habit of looking at building details wherever I go!).

Rishi: Take me through the process of creating one of your pieces

Stephen: Each piece is hand sculpted in wax using fine tools similar to dental tools. Each piece can take anything from an hour to several weeks to complete to a suitable standard. The next step is to take a mold from this original piece. This is a critical point in the process, we use raw silicone rubber to make the mold and any mistake is costly, usually costing in the loss of the piece (this hasn’t happened yet but it is a possibility). Once the silicone has cured the wax model is removed (and destroyed in the process) what’s left is a rubber mold of the model from which we can cast exact reproductions in our own marble based resin. Each piece is cast in a vacuum chamber to remove all air and ‘pull’ the resin into the detail contained in the mold. After the resin has cured the cast is removed from the mold to be tidied up, the base sanded flat and on to painting. The painting is done completely by hand and each piece has a ‘master’ which is copied as closely as possible to maintain both colour shade and painting standards. After varnishing to protect the item the product is carefully packaged for shipping.

As we all know. Behind every great product their is a strong team behind it. Stephen’s wife Kim plays a big role in production of the range of products.

Also checkout Two Red’s event Purple Rain if you are in the Atlanta area. I totally love this store and what Two Red is doing with it. Their logo is fun and catchy. They throw events to attract new customers. Nice job!